A sub that went missing while carrying five people to the wreckage of the Titanic has less than 40 hours of breathable air left as of Tuesday evening, as the U.S. Coast Guard says search efforts continue. The sub had about 96 hours of oxygen at most onboard, officials said.
A Canadian research vessel lost contact with the submersible during a dive Sunday morning about 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and U.S. and Canadian authorities have been searching for it.
Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick told reporters during a news conference Tuesday afternoon that “about 40 hours of breathable air left” was an estimate based off of the vessel’s original 96 hours of available oxygen.
Chief Petty Officer Robert Simpson, a Coast Guard spokesman, said there wouldn’t be a “hard-and-fast” transition from a search-and-rescue mission to a recovery operation when those hours are up, saying there were several factors that could extend the search.
Frederick said authorities were working around the clock on the search in the Atlantic for the missing sub, calling the effort “an incredibly complex operation.”
“We will do everything in our power to effect a rescue,” Frederick said. “…There is a full-court press effort to get equipment on scene as quickly as we can.”
Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, his son Suleman, British explorer Hamish Harding and French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet were on the sub, along with Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, the U.S.-based company that planned the voyage.
If the sub is found in time, Frederick said it was difficult to describe what a deep-sea rescue would exactly entail.
“That’s a question that then the experts need to look at what is the best course of action for recovering the sub, but I think it’s going to depend on that particular situation,” he said.
The Coast Guard said the last recorded communication from the sub was about an hour and 45 minutes into Sunday’s dive.
Since the sub went missing, the Coast Guard, Canadian coast guard, U.S. Navy and Air National Guard have searched a combined area of about 7,600 square miles, an area larger than the state of Connecticut, Frederick said.
This undated photo provided by OceanGate Expeditions in June 2021 shows the company’s Titan submersible.
OceanGate Expeditions via AP
Search efforts continued Monday night and into Tuesday, he said. A pipe-laying vessel arrived in the search area Tuesday and sent a remotely operated vehicle into the water to look for the sub at its last-known position.
With search flights scheduled to fly over the area throughout the day, a Canadian coast guard vessel was expected to arrive Tuesday evening, Frederick said. Several other Canadian vessels and a U.S. Coast Guard cutter were en route to the area.
The U.S. Navy was working on deploying military assets to aid the search, Frederick said.
The maker of the missing Titanic submersible, OceanGate, was the target of complaints in 2018 made by a former employee over the safety of the vessel’s hull.
According to court documents reviewed by CBS MoneyWatch, OceanGate fired employee David Lochridge in 2018 after he expressed concern about the submersible’s safety. The company sued him that same year, claiming Lochridge had breached his employment contract by disclosing confidential information with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration when he filed a whistleblower complaint with the agency.
In a response to OceanGate’s lawsuit, Lochridge alleged in a 2018 court filing that he had been wrongfully terminated and that his actions were aimed at ensuring the safety of passengers on the submersible, called the Titan. The Titan is now the focus of a massive search in the North Atlantic after it went missing during a dive to the wreckage of the Titanic with five passengers on board.
In his complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, Lochridge alleged he had raised concerns about the safety of the Titan with OceanGate and advised the company to conduct more testing of the the vessel’s hull. Lochridge said he had disagreed with his employer about the best way to test the safety of the sub and that he objected to OceanGate’s decision to perform dives without “non-destructive testing to prove its integrity.”
Non-destructive testing is a type of analysis used on materials to determine their integrity and reliability.
“The paying passengers would not be aware, and would not be informed, of this experimental design, the lack of non-destructive testing of the hull, or that hazardous flammable materials were being used within the submersible,” Lochridge’s legal filing stated.
The document added that Lochridge believed the company could “subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible.”
Separately, a trade group in 2018 sent a letter to OceanGate expressing reservations about the sub’s safety, according to The New York Times. The letter, from the Manned Underwater Vehicles committee of the Marine Technology Society, said the group was concerned that OceanGate’s “experimental” approach could have potentially “catastrophic” outcomes that could impact their industry.
OceanGate didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement to CBS News, Lochridge’s attorney said he had no comment regarding his allegations. “We pray for everyone’s safe return,” the attorney said.
Safety checks
Lochridge, a submarine pilot and underwater inspector, said in a legal filing that he was “trained to recognize flaw and points of failure in subsea equipment.” His job at OceanGate involved “ensuring the safety of all crew and clients during submersible and surface operations,” according to the filing.
The Titan relied on carbon fiber for a hull that would carry passengers as deep as 4,000 meters, a depth that Lochridge claimed in the court filing had never been reached in a carbon fiber-constructed sub. According to his claim, he learned the vessel was built to withstand a certified pressure of 1,300 meters, although OceanGate planned to take passengers to 4,000 meters.
Lochridge also expressed concern that the company planned for the sub to rely on an acoustic monitoring system to detect if the hull was breaking down or about to fail. That wouldn’t provide much help in an emergency, Lochridge claimed in the filing, because the acoustic analysis would only alert people about imminent problems, “often milliseconds before an implosion.”
Lochridge claimed the submersible needed additional types of tests to ensure its hull could withstand the rigors of deep-sea exploration. “Non-destructive testing was critical to detect such potentially existing flaws in order to ensure a solid and safe product for the safety of the passengers and crew,” his legal filing claims.
Rather than address those concerns, OceanGate “immediately fired” Lochridge, the court document claim. The company allegedly gave him “approximately 10 minutes to immediately clear out his desk and exit the premises.”
As search and rescue teams continue to comb the North Atlantic for a missing submersible that vanished on a trip to the Titanic wreck site, “CBS Sunday Morning” correspondent David Pogue gave insight as to what might have happened to the vessel.
Pogue, who was aboard the Titan for a story last year, said the vessel should be bobbing on the ocean’s surface given that features allow it to rise from the depths of the sea without electricity, and even if everyone aboard is passed out.
But if it isn’t floating, he said, that “could only mean two things: either they got snagged on something on the bottom of the sea, which is pretty unlikely. There’s nothing there but the Titanic. Or there was a breach in the hull and it instantly imploded.”
The Titan sub, operated by Washington state-based company OceanGate Expeditions, left for its Titanic trip with five people on board, including at least three paying passengers. The U.S. Coast Guard is leading the search for the vessel about 900 miles east of Cape Cod and around 400 miles southeast of Canada’s Newfoundland coast, where it started its dive on Sunday morning.
At this point, hope is “quickly fading,” Pogue said, because, while the vessel theoretically has four days’ worth of oxygen, that supply has never been tested.
“Nobody’s ever measured it,” he said, noting that half of the supply is now theoretically gone since Tuesday marked two days since the submersible and crew of five lost contact on Sunday.
Even if the vessel is on the surface, it cannot be opened from the inside, so air supply would still be an issue, Pogue said, adding, “we need to find them.”
No one has ever been inside the vessel for four days, Pogue said. An expedition to the Titanic site usually lasts 10 to 12 hours, with about two and a half hours spent descending to the Titanic wreck and a few hours spent exploring before resurfacing. But Pogue said “things go wrong all the time in this business,” and that one attempt he made to see the wreck site last year “only lasted 37 feet down” before the vessel encountered a mechanical problem and had to be hoisted out of the water.
The Titan is the only five-person vessel in the world that can reach Titanic depths 2.4 miles below the ocean’s surface — and submersibles like it are “one-offs,” Pogue said.
“It’s not like iPhones [where] there are thousands of them that they can perfect,” Pogue said. “There’s one of it,” and some parts of the vessel are improvised.
Pogue noted that, in international waters, vessels like the Titan operate without inspections or certifications from third-party organizations. Although he said that like with a rocket launch, there are meticulous checklists and briefings.
It would be “devastating” if the vessel is deep underwater because even if it is found, there is no way to rescue those aboard.
“The deepest submarine rescue ever performed was 1,500 feet. … This is 13,000 feet. There’s no other craft that can get down there in time,” Pogue said.
He said there are only three or four machines in the world that can go to that depth, noting they take weeks to prepare and are not on site.
He also said it is “really bad” that the vessel lost signal two-thirds of the way down to the ocean floor, which likely means something “catastrophic” happened.
As a search and rescue mission continues for a private submarine that went missing while on an expedition to explore the wreckage of the Titanic, more is emerging about its five passengers.
Among the confirmed passengers are British businessman Hamish Harding; Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son, Suleman; and French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet. Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, the company that operates the submarine, is also on the vessel, the BBC reported.
OceanGate billed the trip as an opportunity to “become one of the few to see the Titanic with your own eyes.” The company said the fee for securing a seat on the submarine was $250,000, according to its website. The trip wasn’t billed as mere tourism, however, with OceanGate noting that each of its dives has a scientific purpose.
In a June 17 Facebook post, Harding announced he was “proud” to be joining the expedition.
“The team on the sub has a couple of legendary explorers, some of which have done over 30 dives to the RMS Titanic since the 1980s including PH Nargeolet,” he noted.
Here’s what to know about the passengers on the vessel.
Hamish Harding, chairman of Action Aviation
Harding is the chairman of a company called Action Aviation, which sells aircraft to Fortune 100 companies, international corporations, heads of state and people in the entertainment and sports industries, according to its website. The British businessman is referred to as a billionaire in the British press, but Forbes magazine noted that he’s not included on its list of the world’s richest people.
British businessman Hamish Harding is seen in this handout picture taken in flight in July of 2019.
JANNICKE MIKKELSEN
Aside from his business, Harding is known for his exploits as an adventurer. He holds five records with the Guinness Book of World Records, including “fastest circumnavigation of Earth via both the geographic poles” by airplane, which he and a team accomplished in 2019 in a little over 46 hours.
Harding also was one of six people on Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin’s mission last June, when they flew to the edge of space.
Before the Titanic expedition, Harding shared on Facebook that the mission was “likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023” because of weather conditions.
Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman Dawood
Shahzada Dawood, 48, is the vice chairman of Dawood Hercules, an investment and holding company based in Karachi, Pakistan.
Dawood Hercules is part of the Dawood Group, a family business for more than a century, according to his biography at the SETI Institute, where he also serves on the board. Dawood is heir to one of Pakistan’s largest family fortunes according to the New York Times.
British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, who are two of the five people on board a small submersible vessel that went missing on June 18, 2023, as it dived toward the wreckage of the Titanic in the North Atlantic.
Courtesy of the Dawood family
Dawood is a resident of the U.K. with his wife and two children, Suleman and daughter Alina, the SETI Institute noted. He also is an “ardent animal lover” and has a masters degree in global textile marketing from Philadelphia University in the U.S. and a law degree from Buckingham University in the U.K.
Suleman Dawood is 19 years old, according to the U.K.’s DailyMail.
“We are very grateful for the concern being shown by our colleagues and friends and would like to request everyone to pray for their safety,” the Dawood family said in a statement.
Nargeolet is known as a Titanic expert, according to the OceanGate website. He’s led six expeditions to the ship’s wreckage site and is known as “Titanic’s Greatest Explorer,” the company said.
Paul-Henri Nargeolet poses next to a miniature version of the Titanic at an exhibit in Paris, France, on May 31, 2013.
JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images
He’s also the director of underwater research for RMS Titanic, an American company that owns the salvage rights to the wreck and operates exhibits featuring artifacts from the ship. About 30 million people have visited its exhibits, according to the company.
Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate
Rush, also reportedly on the vessel, is CEO of the company running the expedition.
When he was 19, Rush was the youngest person to become a jet transport-rated pilot when he earned a DC-8 Type/Captain’s rating at the United Airlines Jet Training Institute, according to his biography at OceanGate.
OceanGate co-founder and CEO Stockton Rush speaks in front of a projected image of the wreck of the ocean liner SS Andrea Doria during a presentation on June 13, 2016.
Bill Sikes / AP
Rush earned a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from Princeton University in 1984 and an MBA from the Berkeley Haas School of Business in 1989. In 2009, Rush founded OceanGate, where he oversees the company’s financial and engineering strategies, according to the company.
The U.S. Coast Guard is leading search and rescue efforts after a submersible vessel with 5 people aboard lost contact on a dive to the Titanic shipwreck site, about 900 miles east of Cape Cod. Rear Admiral John Mauger held a briefing Monday afternoon with the latest on the search.
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A massive search unfurled on Monday as authorities probed the North Atlantic for a tourist submarine that went missing over the weekend on an expedition to explore the famous Titanic shipwreck. Here’s what we know so far about the submersible craft and what may have happened to it.
What happened?
A five-person crew on a submarine named Titan and owned by OceanGate Expeditions submerged Sunday morning, the U.S. Coast Guard said Monday afternoon, and the crew of the Polar Prince research ship lost contact with the submersible nearly two hours later.
Hamish Harding, a British billionaire, is reportedly onboard the submersible along with four additional, as-of-yet unidentified, people.
The Coast Guard is expected to release more information during a Monday afternoon briefing slated for 4:30 p.m., ET.
The @USCG is searching for a 21-foot submersible from the Canadian research vessel Polar Prince.
The 5 person crew submerged Sunday morning, and the crew of the Polar Prince lost contact with them approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes into the vessel’s dive.
News of the vanished submersible and subsequent search broke earlier on Monday. At the time, Lt. Jordan Hart, of the Coast Guard in Boston told CBS News that personnel there were leading the rescue mission, and focusing on waters off Newfoundland in eastern Canada. Hart said Coast Guard personnel were “currently undergoing a search and rescue operation” in that area in an effort to locate and recover the submarine.
The Boston Regional Coordination Center was managing the rescue operation, a spokesperson for the Canadian Coast Guard confirmed. The location of the Titanic shipwreck falls within the Boston coordination center’s territory, according to a map of jurisdictions along the East Coast of North America.
The U.S. Coast Guard said it had a C-130 crew searching for the sub approximately 900 miles off Cape Cod, and that the Rescue Coordination Center Halifax is assisting with a P8 Poseidon aircraft, which has underwater detection capabilities.
The missing submarine
The unique submersible craft that disappeared is owned by OceanGate Expeditions, a company that deploys manned submarines for deep sea exploration and has in the past advertised this particular sub’s endeavor to carry tourists down to the wreckage of the RMS Titanic for $250,000 per seat. More than a century after the Titanic sunk in April 1912, the wreck lies about 400 miles southeast of the Newfoundland coast.
A map shows the point where the RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic, on April 15, 1912, about 380 miles southeast of the Newfoundland, Canada, coast and some 1,300 miles east of its destination in New York City.
Getty/iStockphoto
OceanGate said recently on its website and on social media that an expedition to the shipwreck was “underway,” describing the seven-night trip as a “chance to step outside of everyday life and discover something truly extraordinary.” In addition to one ongoing expedition, the company had planned two others for the summer of next year, according to the site.
In a statement, OceanGate confirmed the missing submarine is theirs and acknowledged that a rescue operation had been launched to find and recover it. The company said it was “exploring and mobilizing all options to bring the crew back safely.” The company did not clarify how many people were inside the sub when it departed from Canada, and it was not clear whether anyone on board the vessel was a passenger who paid to tour the Titanic.
Who is Hamish Harding?
Hamish Harding, a 59-year-old British billionaire, businessperson and explorer, was reportedly onboard the submarine when it disappeared, according to BBC News, which noted that Harding announced publicly his decision to join the Titanic shipwreck expedition. In a post shared to his Facebook page on Saturday, Harding wrote: “I am proud to finally announce that I joined OceanGate Expeditions for their RMS TITANIC Mission as a mission specialist on the sub going down to the Titanic.”
I am proud to finally announce that I joined OceanGate Expeditions for their RMS TITANIC Mission as a mission specialist…
“Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023,” the Facebook post continued. “A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow. We started steaming from St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada yesterday and are planning to start dive operations around 4am tomorrow morning. Until then we have a lot of preparations and briefings to do.”
That post was Harding’s most recent social media update related to the submarine trip. It included multiple photographs of him, including one that showed Harding signing his name on a banner that read “Titanic Expedition Mission V” and another that pictured the submersible vessel itself.
Harding’s company, Action Aviation, later confirmed that he was one of the tourists on board, The Associated Press reported.
“There is still plenty of time to facilitate a rescue mission, there is equipment on board for survival in this event,” the company’s managing director, Mark Butler, told the AP. “We’re all hoping and praying he comes back safe and sound.”
Harding is a veteran adventure tourist who traveled to space aboard a Blue Origin rocket last year.
“Focus is on the crewmembers”
“Our entire focus is on the crewmembers in the submersible and their families,” OceanGate said in its statement Monday, adding that it was “deeply thankful for the extensive assistance we have received from several government agencies and deep sea companies in our efforts to reestablish contact with the submersible.”
Exactly when the vessel last made contact has not been made public either, although the Coast Guard said in an update Monday that a crew was “searching for an overdue Canadian research submarine” in waters roughly 900 miles from the coast of Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
A @USCG C-130 crew is searching for an overdue Canadian research submarine approximately 900 miles off #CapeCod.
For more info and inquiries, please email d1publicaffairs@uscg.mil
Personnel from the Rescue Coordination Center in Halifax, a city in the eastern Canadian province of Nova Scotia, near Newfoundland, sent its P8 Poseidon aircraft to assist in the search since the craft has “underwater detection capabilities,” the Coast Guard wrote in a separate update Monday afternoon.
OceanGate said in a tweet shared earlier this month that it was using the satellite company Starlink to maintain communication with the submersible craft as it journeyed toward the Titanic wreckage.
Despite being in the middle of the North Atlantic, we have the internet connection we need to make our #Titanic dive operations a success – thank you @Starlink! pic.twitter.com/sujBmPr3JD
— OceanGate Expeditions (@OceanGateExped) June 1, 2023
“Despite being in the middle of the North Atlantic, we have the internet connection we need to make our Titanic dive operations a success — thank you Starlink,” OceanGate wrote in the tweet, which it posted alongside an image of the submersible attached to a deck on the surface of the ocean. The company last tweeted about its Titanic expedition on June 15.
The Titan
Dubbed the Titan, OceanGate’s deep sea vessel is said to be the only five-person submersible in the world with capabilities to reach its depth at nearly 2 1/2 miles beneath the ocean’s surface, CBS “Sunday Mornings” correspondent David Pogue reported last year.
It is one of three submersible crafts owned by OceanGate that appear on the company’s website, BBC News reported, adding that the vessel typically carries a pilot, three paying guests and another person described as a “content expert” by the company. Referencing the OceanGate website, which was down on Monday afternoon, BBC News additionally reported that the Titan, weighing around 23,000 pounds, is billed for its ability to reach depths of up to 4,000 meters — just about 2 1/2 miles — and has about 96 hours of live support for a crew of five people.
In the fall, Pogue hoped to accompany the Titan crew on a successful round-trip from Newfoundland to the Titanic wreck, but their expedition was canceled when weather conditions indicated it may not be safe. At the time, he described the Titan as a one-of-a-kind submersible craft made from thick carbon fiber and coated on both ends by a dome of titanium.
Ahead of the planned dive, Pogue recalled signing paperwork that read, in part, “This experimental vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, emotional trauma, or death.” Space inside the submarine was similar to the interior of a minivan, and, with just one button and a video game controller used to steer it, the vessel “seemed improvised, with off-the-shelf components,” Pogue said.
A search and rescue mission was underway Monday morning for a submarine that went missing in the North Atlantic on an expedition to explore the wreckage of the Titanic. Lt. Jordan Hart of the U.S. Coast Guard in Boston told CBS News that personnel were “currently undergoing a search and rescue operation” when asked about the rescue efforts off the coast of Newfoundland.
OceanGate Expeditions, a company that deploys manned submersibles for deep sea expeditions, confirmed in a statement that its sub was the subject of the rescue operation, adding that it was “exploring and mobilizing all options to bring the crew back safely.”
The company did not say how many people were on board the missing vessel or whether any of them were paying tourists, whom it does take as passengers on its expeditions.
“Our entire focus is on the crewmembers in the submersible and their families,” said OceanGate, adding that it was “deeply thankful for the extensive assistance we have received from several government agencies and deep sea companies in our efforts to reestablish contact with the submersible.”
A map shows the point where the RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic, on April 15, 1912, about 380 miles southeast of the Newfoundland, Canada coast and some 1,300 miles east of its destination in New York City.
Getty/iStockphoto
The U.S. Coast Guard said in a tweet that “A @USCG C-130 crew is searching for an overdue Canadian research submarine approximately 900 miles off #CapeCod,” and that the Rescue Coordination Center Halifax is assisting with a P8 Poseidon aircraft, which has underwater detection capabilities.
OceanGate recently said on its website and social media feeds that an expedition to the wreckage of the RMS Titanic, which lies about 400 miles southeast of the Newfoundland coast, was “underway.”
Contacted by CBS News, the Canadian Coast Guard said the rescue operation was being managed by the Boston Regional Coordination Center, and a map showing jurisdictions for the various coastal search and rescue agencies off the North American coast shows the location of the Titanic wreck within the Boston center’s area of responsibility.
Earlier this month, OceanGate said on Twitter that it was using satellite company Starlink to help maintain communications with its expedition to the Titanic.
Despite being in the middle of the North Atlantic, we have the internet connection we need to make our #Titanic dive operations a success – thank you @Starlink! pic.twitter.com/sujBmPr3JD
— OceanGate Expeditions (@OceanGateExped) June 1, 2023
“Despite being in the middle of the North Atlantic, we have the internet connection we need to make our Titanic dive operations a success — thank you Starlink,” the tweet said. The company’s website advertises seven-night voyages to see the Titanic wreckage priced at $250,000.
The company last tweeted about the Titanic expedition on June 15.
On Saturday, British businessman Hamish Harding shared on Facebook that he was among the group on the OceanGate expedition that had departed from St. Johns, Newfoundland, the day before, BBC News reported. “The team on the sub has a couple of legendary explorers, some of which have done over 30 dives to the RMS Titanic since the 1980s,” Harding wrote. He said it was “likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023” due to weather conditions, and that the team planned to start dive operations at around 4 a.m. Sunday.
OceanGate’s submersible, The Titan, is the only five-person sub in the world capable of reaching the Titanic wreck, which sits 2.4 miles below the sea surface. CBS News “Sunday Mornings” correspondent David Pogue joined the crew of the vessel, along with a small group of intrepid tourists, for a journey to see the world’s most famous shipwreck last year.
As he got situated in the vessel, which he said had about as much room inside as a minivan, Pogue said he “couldn’t help noticing how many pieces of this sub seemed improvised, with off-the-shelf components,” including a video game controller that was used to pilot the sub.
SAINT PETER PORT, UK—Indicating that the passenger liner was unlikely to ever sail again, a full 3D scan conducted by deepwater seabed mapping company Magellan revealed Friday that the Titanic was completely ruined. “Unfortunately, after several exhaustive high-resolution, 360-degree scans of the famous ship, it’s clear that the Titanic is absolutely trashed,” said Magellan director Richard Parkinson, whose submersibles had yielded evidence that there was extensive structural damage to the bow and stern that would affect the ill-fated vessel’s seaworthiness. “The rust on the surface was not as superficial as we expected, and it appears to have penetrated deep into the hull. We were hoping we could get away with installing a new engine and updating the paint job, but the damage seems too great. That’s not even to mention that the boat is full of skeletons.” At press time, the completely totaled Titanic was sold for scrap.
Brand new images of the Titanic have been released, offering unprecedented views of the shipwreck. The images could shed new light on how the iconic liner sank over a century ago.
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An oceanographic institution is releasing over an hour of “mostly unreleased” footage from the 1986 dive exploring the wreck of the R.M.S. Titanic.
The footage is being shared by the Woods Hole Oceanic Institution in honor of the 25th anniversary of James Cameron’s Academy Award-winning movie, “Titanic,” which has been re-released in theaters around the country.
The wreckage of the Titanic was first found by researchers from the WHOI, working in partnership with a French institute, in 1985. That expedition was led by Dr. Robert Ballard, the WHOI said in a statement. In June 1986, the team returned to the wreck site with the human-occupied submersible Alvin, and a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) called Jason Junior. That mission marked the “first time humans set eyes on the ill-fated ship” since its sinking in 1912, according to the institution.
The remotely-operated vehicle Jason Jr. on the deck of the “Titanic” in 1986.
The “rare, uncut and mostly unnarrated footage” is expected to be uploaded to the WHOI’s YouTube channel later on Wednesday. Currently, a one-minute preview video is available on the institution’s channel. The brief narration that does exist is done by Ballard, the WHOI said.
According to the WHOI, video highlights from the footage will include images of the Alvin submersible approaching the ship and parking on its deck, interior shots of the wreck including a look inside a chief officer’s cabin and footage of debris on the ocean floor.
“More than a century after the loss of Titanic, the human stories embodied in the great ship continue to resonate,” said Cameron, in a statement provided by the WHOI. “Like many, I was transfixed when Alvin and Jason Jr. ventured down to and inside the wreck. By releasing this footage, WHOI is helping tell an important part of a story that spans generations and circles the globe.”
About 2,200 people were aboard the ocean liner, heralded as “unsinkable” and designed to be the most luxurious ship available, when it set out into the North Atlantic. About 1,500 people died after the ship struck an iceberg and sank in the early hours of Apr. 15, 1912 with only 700 passengers and crew members surviving to be rescued by the R.M.S. Carpathia. The wreckage of the ship has remained about 12,600 feet below the ocean’s surface ever since.
According to the WHOI, efforts to “locate and salvage” the ship began almost immediately after the sinking, but technical limitations kept the wreck hidden for nearly 75 years. By 1985, new imaging technology captured photographs of the ship and helped researchers find the wreck.
Dana Yoerger, a WHOI engineer and a member of both the 1985 and 1986 missions, said the 1986 expedition “changed how we explore the deep ocean.”
“The human-occupied submersible Alvin brought scientists down 12,500 feet to the Titanic,” Yoerger said in a statement. “Operating from Alvin, we used the Jason Jr robot to penetrate Titanic and transmit images of the ship’s interior while the people remained safely outside the wreckage. For WHOI and the entire ocean research community, these advances provided an important foundation for modern deep-sea exploration technology.”
The famed and fictional “Heart of the Ocean” diamond necklace is no match for the one question that remains at the heart of James Cameron’s 1997 epic 3.5-hour film: could Jack Dawson have fit on the door with Rose DeWitt Bukater, ultimately saving his life?
The scene in question takes place after the RMS Titanic meets its fate and begins its descent to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Jack and Rose, the fictional ill-fated lovers who met aboard the ship, find themselves swirling through the icy waters, where they manage to find a thick door that had been ripped off its hinges aboard.
Rose went on first, but as Jack attempted, they both fell off, prompting Jack to allow Rose sole custody of the makeshift island. When help finally comes in lifeboats, Rose is alive while Jack has frozen to death.
Screen capture of the movie “Titanic”, written and directed by James Cameron. Seen here from left, Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack and Kate Winslet as Rose after the Titanic has sunk.
Paramount Pictures. Photo by CBS via Getty Images
Ever since that scene’s release, the question about whether the door had room for Jack as well has been a source of contention. It’s even prompted a dedicated episode of “Mythbusters” on the Discovery Channel, in which they found that if they had tied Rose’s lifejacket to the bottom of the door, it could have supported both of them.
But Cameron insisted after that 2012 finding that Jack “has to die.” And now, the famed director is weighing in once again – with proof.
“We have done a scientific study to put this whole thing to rest and drive a stake through its heart once and for all,” Cameron told Postmedia, according to The Toronto Sun. “We have since done a thorough forensic analysis with a hypothermia expert who reproduced the raft from the movie. …We took two stunt people who were the same body mass of Kate and Leo and we put sensors all over them and inside them and we put them in ice water and we tested to see whether they could have survived through a variety of methods.”
So, what’s the answer?
“There was no way they both could have survived,” Cameron said. “Only one could survive.”
The journey of that study will be revealed in a “little special” set to come out on National Geographic in February, he said, at the same time that “Titanic” is back in theaters to celebrate its 25th anniversary.
And now, two-and-a-half decades later with proof to back him up, Cameron says he has “no” regrets for the movie’s outcome.
“He needed to die. It’s like Romeo and Juliet,” he said. “It’s a movie about love and sacrifice and mortality. The love is measured by the sacrifice.”
